REVUE BRYOLOGIQUE. 91 
cealed by the connate involucral leaves ; the stem - leaves 
entire, or nearly so, with postical leaves (or slipules) added. 
Thus limited, it corresponds in part 10 the Alicularia of Corda 
(1829) — a name proposed six years later than Dumortier’s, 
yel adopted for the genus by Nees (Eur. Leberm. 1836) , and 
by the authors of Synopsis Hepaticarum (1844). 
Dumortier’s second genus, Marsupella , is thus defined : 
« Perichælium polyphyllum, phyllis circulariter in urceolum 
basi inter se et cum colesula connatis » , which is essentially 
the same character as that of Mesophylla ; for Dumortier 
professed to fonnd his genera on ihe structure of the floral 
envelopes alone, without any reference to the vegetative or- 
gans, His type-species, however, of Marsupclla is Jq. emargi- 
nata Ebrh., which has bilobed leaves and no stipules — a real 
and tangible difference from Mesophylla, without which his 
two genera would be indistinguishable. è 
Dumortier, many years later, in his « Sylloge Jungermani- 
dearum » (1831) and his « Hepaticæ Europæ » (1874) divided 
Mesophylla into {wo genera , viz. Mesophylla Dum., with the 
generic character « Perichætium polyphyllum, phyllis al- 
ternis , inter-se libcris» , as contrasied with his character of 
Alicularia (Dum.) « Perich. oligophyllum, phyllis gemina- 
tim oppositis, superioribus in urceolum connatis »; — an 
inadequate generic difference, if correct, but having no foun- 
dation in fact. It is /g. compressa Hook., his type-species of 
Mesophylla, which has the fewest bracts — often indeed re- 
duced to a single pair, which are connale at the base to each se 
other, and adnate to the included perianth, therefore cer- 
taively neither « alterna » nor « inter se libera » ; while in ee 
_ Alicularia scalaris — his type of that genus — the bracts are 
3,4, or sometimes 5 pairs. To his Mesophylla he tacked on Jg. 
=.  Orcadensis Hook. and Jg. Wenzelii Nees : species plainly he- 
_ terogeneous. This third division of the group may therefore 
be dismissed, as not even of sectional value. jrs 
If we turn now to the classical « Synopsis Hepaticarum » 
of Gottsche , Lindenberg and Nees, we find the essential cha- 
racter of Sarcoscyphus thus : « Perianthium cum involucro in 
urceolum connatum , dentibus in fauce involueri dehiscens » ; 
and of Alicularia « Perianthium involuero immersum et cum 
eodem ab inferiore parte concretum , ore incluso deutato ». 
_ Although differently worded, there is not a shade of diffe- 
. rence between these two characters , nor is either absolutely 
correct. To speak of the perianth as dehiscing with teeth in 
the throat of the involuere gives an erroneous idea of its 
structure, for it is (when normally developed) in no respect 
different from the perianth of Jungermania being faintly 3-5 
re it is either quite closed , or minutely perforated, or 
